


all that he has

by youngerdrgrey



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Drabble, F/M, Gen, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-06-24
Updated: 2012-06-24
Packaged: 2017-11-08 11:33:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/442776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youngerdrgrey/pseuds/youngerdrgrey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All he has is an empty heart, a chipped cup, and the memories. Rumpelstiltskin/Belle. Interconnected drabbles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. all that he has

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this the moment Belle said the line about Rumpelstiltskin only having an empty heart and a chipped cup. I fell so hard for these two. It's ridiculous.

All he has is an empty heart, a chipped cup, and the memories. They are his prison. His shell to toughen his skin and warp his mind. He has many memories that make him sweat in even his happiest dreams. But these days - most days - they're of her.

...

_She's fascinated by everything. The way the straw turns, the pictures the light makes on the walls, the cup. She pauses in polishing it, her eyes dancing with an easiness that reminds him of someone else, someone younger. She always seems so young._

_"Imagine if this cup could talk. Imagine they all could, all of your furniture. I wonder what stories they would tell me."_

_Above all, she's fascinated by him. He deflects her focus time and time again, but, on occasion, he indulges._

_"Mostly they would speak of what you don't - your despair, your neglect, your loneliness."_

_He does not look up to see the way her face pulls inward. He cannot afford such luxuries. He already lets her wander about. Anything more and... He doesn't look up._

_Her voice is like a whisper when she speaks. Yet, he hears every word as if she spoke them straight into his ears, through them, to the blackened brain that controls him. "I am not lonely. I have you," she says. And his brain flashes to another person who only had him, to Bae's fate, to his own._

_"You'd be better off alone," he says. They both would. He's sure of that no matter how much his mind turns. "Take a day to clean the upstairs." It is a dismissal. An order without his usual force. Perhaps that's why she does not listen._

_"I already have."_

_He snaps at her, fury at them both exploding from within. "Then clean it again. Scrub the floors until they start telling you stories."_

_She stutters at that, stumbles over her thoughts that are too large for being locked away with him. "B-but they cannot."_

_He does look up then. His lips upturn into the sinister smile he does so well and he speakrs in the voice of the monster he fights to be. "Then make them." Her face falls and so does his resolve. He brings his gaze back to the straw that turns to gold. This he can handle. This he can control. Belle tries to speak to him again, but he forces himself to ignore her. Eventually, she does go upstairs._

_She spends days up there, not even coming down for supper. He has to get her on the fourth day. He climbs the stairs to find her lying on the ground, ear pressed to the floor of Bae's bedroom. She is not thin, meaning she has fed herself when he retired to his room the last few days. Smart girl. So very smart. Too smart to be around. Too smart to keep. But he must. He cannot bear to lose her, even to herself._

_He tells her to come downstairs but she refuses. Not until the ground sings. This is the second time she defies him. That in and of itself is brave. He turns fom the room without a word and does a spell in much the same fashion. It is not until he gets back to his chair that he hears it, the tales of the world. He shall not take her, but that doesn't mean he shall deny her. It is her wish to know the world. He grants it. Still, all magic comes with a price. The price of this is her love. He pays for that even now. Pays for his weakness, his humanity, his... silly fascination._

_..._

Mr. Gold sits behind bars. Henry and Regina are long gone. Emma pays him little mind. It is only because he no longer is pressured to that he admits, "You did not hear wrong, Ms. Swan."

Emma is silent a moment before she says, "I never do." She hesitates. He feels her eyes on him. "That cup in your hand - that what he took? That's it?"

He turns it over in his hands, traces the chip that not even he can spell away. He meets her eye.

"Sadly no. But it is enough. It's all I have." Or all he'd like to have at least.


	2. the worst memory

The memory of the kiss is the worst. It immobilizes him, trapping him in a place partway between his worst nightmare and biggest fantasy. Every time that particular memory hits, his brain splits in two. One half charges forward with reality - he shoves her and shakes her and sends her to her inevitable death. The other half takes its time in a different sort of reality, where he kisses her until she softly pushes him away. Belle's eyes radiate a delight unlike any other. She says that she loves him. He tells her that it's not possible. She pledges to spend the rest of their lives showing him that it is. He tells her that monsters never die. She points to the mirror hidden by the cloak and says he does not look like a monster. He looks human, looks hers. He tells her, "Looks can be deceiving."

"Not the one in your eyes. It tells me you're in there, a man trapped in the body and soul of a beast."

"Body and soul?" he repeats, "Then what is left to make me a man?"

"I can think of one," says Belle with a taunting grin. She moves closer, her hand rising to tease a finger down his chest. She whispers, "Your heart."

He has no response to that, no words to sum the flurry within him. A million thoughts, a thousand questions, and truly only three short syllables. But even in this dream, the happiest he possesses, he cannot say them. Cannot accept them from her either. The true thing that makes this the worst of all his tortures is that every once in a while he forgets which part is real. He cannot tell the difference and starts his day thinking that he changed when she kissed him, that she waits with a book in the library or sits on the table to watch him spin. Eventually, never too long into it yet always after he's lulled himself into happiness, he remembers what truly happens. Then, he thinks the one truth that both experiences teach him: This is not a memory. This is torture.


	3. nightmares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The Return" episode tag

It's on the night that he almost dies that Rumpelstiltskin dreams about her again. He closes his eyes looking at the barren white walls of his bedroom and opens them to the blooming field of his old backyard. The vibrant colors tell him the season, and he knows without even having to wonder who will be appearing in this dream.

He turns briskly, the wind rushing against the clamminess of his skin, making him feel as cold as he feels inside. He ignores it though. He scans the flowers and trees for her. Where is she? Not just here but in Storybrooke. If Prince Charming was brought back, why not Belle? She deserves it just as much as any shepherd. Where is she?

He starts walking. Running. The fact that he can run reminds him that this is a dream. This isn't real. He shouldn't get too happy. Not too attached. Not too worked up. It's not real. Belle won't be real. Anything he sees will be a figment of his imagination. He just needs to calm down and stop and-

"Oof!"

\- his body collides with hers. He catches her just as the last semblance of his sanity goes off with the wind. His eyes fall to Belle's, and he smiles. Not too large of one, just enough to show her that he's there. That he won't harm her. Never harm her.

"Belle," he says her name like a whisper, like he can't believe he gets to. And he can't. It's been so long, so very long. His eyes trail from her eyes to her lips. Too long. When he meets her gaze again, she's as red in the cheeks as Snow.

Belle shakes her head softly, mumbling, apologizing, "I shouldn't be running out here. I know you don't approve of me being out-"

"Nonsense," he says quickly. She jolts a bit at the interruption. He says, "You should be outside. Always. You don't belong caged in a cellar or a tower. You need adventure. Let's see the world. Let's do what you wanted. I'll go with you now. I'll go with you."

Again, Belle shakes her head, and when she speaks, he hears both her voice and the Blue Fairy's. "It's too late. You had your chance. You said no."

"I take it back! I want to go," he says. "Let me go. Please.  _Please_." But the word does nothing here.

"I'm sorry," says Belle as she steps away from him. As the skies turn dark and her father appears. As Regina's laughter fills the air, louder and louder, consuming him and filling the spaces that the magic left in his soul. Every single space but one. And in that space, in that one open second, he hears the sounds he never wants to - hears the crunch of Belle's bones as she dives from her tower, hears Bae's final cry as the ground closes over him, hears the beeping of the clock. The so called real world seeping in to take him away. Well, what's left of him anyway.

It's on the morning after he almost dies that he wishes he never woke up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> should I keep going with these drabbles?


End file.
